L’amour fou

Reading The Daily Beast’s post about Borderline Personality Disorder and sex (the implication being that men assume the women are wild in bed, so choose to overlook the insanity!), I’m reminded of a more tongue-in-cheek piece I wrote for GQ Style. I try to decipher the allure of the ‘hot crazy’ woman and the ‘bad boy’. It’s not available until September, but here’s a preview:

I’ve dated my fair share of bad boys. There was the much older rock musician with the Cape Fear tattoos on his hands who I met when I was a 15-year-old student. I was so convinced that his songs would be ‘on the radio someday’ that I would steal my mum’s car to see him in every dive bar gig he played (I was partially right, because he was playing Dire Straits covers!) He had so many groupies that I started to think Heartbreak Hotel was an actual destination.

Another time, I had a fling with a banker who had a crazy travel schedule and a mobile phone for every postal code. He was a bad boy and he didn’t care who knew it – his global harem made Tiger Woods’ posse look like a tea party….

There is a male equivalent to the bad boy; she’s the ‘hot crazy’ chick. She’s insecure and plugs into his hero complex, which makes both of them feel better – usually until someone flies into a jealous rage. But while men usually learn at an early age that the erratic isn’t worth the erotic, women continue to believe that bad boys can change.

Maybe it’s biological. The New Scientist explains that this contradiction occurs because women are attracted to qualities they identify as the ‘dark triad’, which include “the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism.”

So both men AND women play with fire when it comes to choosing intense relationships: Something to keep in mind next time someone calls me a drama queen!